It only hurts when I breathe
by NoPerfectCircle
Summary: Whether she was the fragile cheerleader he had to save or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and come back, begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then and he loved her now. Peter&Claire. AU.
1. Chapter 1 The World as we know it

**Author's note: **Story takes place 6 years after the first season of the show (I wrote this quite a while ago). Set in New York. Obviously, the bomb didn't explode. Totally AU. Don't like the pairing (even though it's not incest here since it's AU), don't read.

**Summary:** _Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then, and he loved her now._

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes, or Peter, or Claire, or any other characters. Everything belong to Tim Kring, the NBC and co.

**Chapter 1: The world as we know it.**

Peter had long given up on nursing, in the academic sense of the term at least. His job was still to take care of people, but in ways that the school of medicine had never prepared him to. Save them. Save the world. '_Always the same old story'_.  
But saving the world was not a full time job. In fact, except for the annual apocalyptic threat that weighs on the world, he was doing nothing, except working on his powers, finding others like him and trying to help them.

Some things had changed though, the world was mutating. The Heroes, as people called them, were starting to diminish in numbers because the government was now aware of their existence and had started to chase them years back when they had first saved the world. They were hunted down for their abilities, their powers. Doctors locked them in cells and made them experiments. It had turned into something of a witch hunt.  
Using your power in a public place was like begging for death. You would be noticed, caught and then, you would spend the rest of your days in a cell until _they_ find a way to duplicate your unicity, your specifity...  
But they never succeeded. So, you generally died.

The horrific conclusion was that, now, people discovering these abilities rejected them. So Peter's job, with Claude's help, was to help those new Heroes to consider their powers as gifts rather than burdens. A quiet job and yet not so simple, especially when Peter had to escape the militia, the brigade specially created to search for people like him. Monsters, freaks, heroes. It was all the same in people's minds.  
The world was a perfect place, sure. For anyone who wasn't a Hero.

Things had been difficult for the people Peter cared about - Matt, Niki, Hiro and all their loved ones, so they had decided to stick together. They had made living arrangements so their apartments were not too far from one another and yet far enough as not to bring suspicion on themselves. They had also made the promise that if one of them was in trouble, the others would help him. A musketeer thing.

Peter arrived near the building, the same old building because he still lived in the same old place. He had never bothered to move even if his activities had been being severely imperilled lately. People were more and more suspicious.  
Actually, Peter wouldn't be surprised if some people with no abilities had already been caught because their neighbour or their best friend had assumed they were a Hero. It would turn out they weren't, but of course, they couldn't be set free. They couldn't reveal what was going on underground. So no one knew what happened to those people. They lived with the belief that they had served their country. But Peter knew what was going on. He had met some people who had been there and been lucky, or rather powerful enough, to come back.

Of course, Peter could travel abroad. But from what Hiro had told him after a quick teleportation journey, things were not going so well in other countries, maybe not as bad as in theirs, but definitely on the same path. Besides, Peter really didn't want to leave New York, or the country for that matter. Some people needed him here.

He was just coming back from a session with Claude, his mentor. "Always a mentor, never a friend," Claude kept saying. That was fine with Peter. He needed a mentor; he needed guidance in those dark hours. Claude helped him in many ways. He had never been a nurse, but Peter felt like he would have been a great one. He always had great advice to give; it was a pity he didn't care more about people. He had never wanted to meet any of Peter's friends. Not Nathan, not Matt, not even Claire…

Nathan had tried though, to meet Claude. But that was the good thing about being invisible. If you don't want to be disturbed then you just disappear. That simple. Peter wished he could disappear sometimes. Not that he was much disturbed by others, but the idea of disappearing… sounded appealing. He wanted to know what it felt like. To disappear, to leave everything behind…

The door of the building groaned. Peter frowned. He hated that noise, especially when he was coming back at 1am. He suspected his neighbour to be aware of his nocturnal movements. He could feel it.  
Peter could feel lots of things since his ability had grown incredibly powerful, lately especially. Mohinder had called that "the next step of evolution". All their powers would, at one point or another, grow, diminish or die. Those who would keep their powers would be the elite, those who would forge the next race. Natural selection.  
As far as Peter was concerned that was bullshit. They had been given powers, and now they had to deserve them. That was probably the hardest part to explain when he was confronted by people already struggling to understand those powers. He wanted, was supposed to, help them accept them. He was supposed to make them want the powers. How could he do that when he had to start with _'Hello, you have extraordinary powers, but we're not sure if you'll keep them. You know, natural selection...'_

He was searching for the keys to his door as he climbed the stairs. His bangs kept falling into his eyes and so he was struggling to keep his hair behind his ear with one hand while trying to get the key out of his rucksack. He had kept those damn bangs even though he hated them. He wasn't sure why, they were just a source of annoyance. And then he heard it,her voice. _Her_. The reason why he had kept those bangs. He had kept them because she loved them.

"Nothing changes" a feminine voice said.

He looked up and saw green eyes staring at him. As if he held all the answers. As if he held the key to the future.

In one second, it all came back to him.

He remembered her waiting for him every night for a month in that same doorway. She would say nothing, just heal his wounds. He would take a shower and she would wait for him in the bed. Sometimes, they only spend the night staring in each other's eyes, holding each other's hands like it was all that mattered. Sometimes, they would make love to feel alive, to feel Love again, for love wasn't lost. Love couldn't be lost, even in this world.

But it had been a long time since he had felt love, it had been a long time since they had parted ways. It had been a long time since she had waited for him at his door.

She had left almost two years ago and had warned no one. She'd never let them know what she was up to. No sign that she was alive, no sign she was fine. He didn't want much. Just a sign. Just a sign she was ok. Had it been too much to ask? She had disappeared without talking to him first, without confronting him about whatever it was that was so bad that she had left. That had made her run away.

So when he came back to his apartment that night and found her waiting… waiting for him… he didn't know exactly what was going on in his mind. Anger, happiness, disappointment. Indifference, maybe? Was there a book somewhere that indicated the right way to react?

He looked at her, almost unconsciously, drawn by some unknown force. She was still the girl that had left him two years ago. Except she wasn't really a little girl anymore. She had left him stranded. And now she was back. A woman of age and experience. Or so it seemed.

"What are you doing here?" he said, passing her without stopping. He wanted to sound casual. He didn't want to seem interested, or angry, or pleased.

She gave him a small and teasing smile. Like the one she always gave, years ago, when she was still a cheerleader and he was still her hero, when things were simple. She gave him a teasing smile like nothing had happened, like she hadn't gone, like they had never lost this special bond they shared…

He took a step into his apartment and she was about to do the same when he turned and putting an arm in front of her, stopped her from doing so.

She looked at him and sighed in what seemed to be exaggerated exasperation. One of her many old tricks she played when she wanted to be desirable. But tricks weren't efficient this time. "Have you lost your good manners?" she asked.

She had grown into a strong woman. She was beautiful. Unafraid. Bold.

"I didn't know preventing a girl who disappeared two years ago from entering your apartment was a loss of good manners."

She smiled with good faith. "Ok, I deserved that one."

"Yep," Peter said without moving his position.

He stared at her intently. He, too, could be bold. And she wouldn't have the last word.

"So," she said, "you really want to spend the night in the doorway or are you going to let me come in?"

Peter did not take time to think, he didn't want her to believe he was hesitating. "I think I'm going to go in. And I think you're not. You can go back to wherever you came from, Claire. You're not welcome here anymore," he said while beginning to close his door.

She took a step forward and put a hand on the door and stopped him from closing it on her. "Please" she said almost vulnerably.

He thought for a moment that maybe the old Claire was still there. Somewhere out there. "Don't give up on me" she insisted.

Now that he saw her clearly, he could swear that her eyes were puffed. Maybe she had cried not long ago. Or maybe she was acting. For all he knew, she could be a well trained liar. After all, there was two years of her life that he knew nothing about. He wondered if she still had the power to break his heart, like she did two years ago when she first left him. Because at that moment, in this doorway, looking in the eyes of the girl he had loved more than anyone, it was all about the power she still had over him. Like when you try to get over someone but realize that here or not, that person just holds the key to your life, heart, and soul. Some call it love. Peter called it love once too. Now he called it foolishness.

"Are you in trouble?" He asked, business like, his voice so deep that it sent shivers to her spine. How much had she missed his voice. He clearly had no idea.

"When haven't I been?" She said while letting a nervous laugh escape.

A moment passed between them. The smile fade away. Green eyes met brown eyes. The story of a lifetime. "Please" she said again.

He let none of his emotions show and said nothing as he opened the door for her to enter. She walked past him and heard him close the door. His place hadn't changed in two years. Still the same old mess, still the same old Peter.

He put his coat on the nearest armchair and sighed. He had no idea what to do about this. He was exhausted and wanted nothing but to take a good, hot shower and go to sleep. But here she was. In his living room. And she was real. He had dreamt of that moment dozen of times. Was she really real?

He realized that he had been staring at her for what seemed like an eternity which was probably something very rude to do. Though with them, that had never mattered. Nothing was forbidden. They said what they wanted, what they thought, it was no holds barred.

"So", he said. "Are you going to tell me why you're here? Or do I have to call Matt and dissect all your thoughts."

She smiled. But it was a sad smile. He was weary and angry. And he contained all his emotions so he wouldn't yell at her. She knew how much he wanted to though. She was a burden to him.

"I, uh, I think we better sit down," she said.

Peter smiled ironically at what he thought was a pathetic attempt to gain time. "While we're at it, I should do some coffee now so you don't ask for it in a few minutes."

She accepted the offer, well, what was as near to an offer as she supposed she was going to get right now. "Coffee would be great." She hadn't had coffee in a while, nor real food actually.

And then as he took off her coat, he realized how thin she was. She had always been thin, but not that thin. Much thinner than she was when she left. She looked… vulnerable.

He shook his head. She wasn't. She was invincible. But were invincible and vulnerable such contradictory terms. Probably not. The worst part was that when she was around him, he felt invincible and yet vulnerable too. He mimicked her in more ways than he mimicked others' powers.

"Do you want something to eat?"

He swore she was about to cry but she only nodded thankfully. And here he was, back to old nurturing Peter. He couldn't even loathe her properly. He thought he did though. He had dreamed of loathing her, and now that she was there, he couldn't. He just couldn't. Somehow, he wanted to take care of her, even if she was a mirage. Even if she was gone by the morning.

A few minutes later he entered the lounge again with the coffee. He felt lost when he didn't see her on the couch. He thought he had dreamed it all, he thought she had gone already. He thought he was going to loathe her again.

He felt a hand on his shoulder that startled him.

"God Claire, you scared me!" he said turning to her. "Stop disappearing like that, will you?"

She backed up and nodded quietly. "Sorry", she muttered. "I was just looking around. Nothing's changed much here."

Where had cheerleader Claire gone? Where was the girl with the beautiful smile that listened to music all day long, that sung in the shower, that was always the first one to make a joke? Where was the girl that had left him?

"Claire", he said in a softer tone, "are you going to tell me what happened now?"

She sat down and was about to say something when Peter interrupted her, like all of a sudden, he couldn't listen to her, but just wanted her to listen to him.

"You disappeared! Two years ago! You gave no news, you didn't leave a letter, you didn't… talk about it. Just a note, Claire. A damn line saying you loved me", he said bitterly, sitting facing her, but not daring to watch in her eyes.

"I had to go" she yelled.

He yelled back. "Why?"

Her mouth gasped open. And there they were. The tears she had been holding back.

He didn't run to her side. She had hurt him. He was not a toy. She couldn't just come back to him and play with him again. She muttered several things under her breath. He only caught something that sounded like 'I thought you would be better off without me…'

He stared at her, eyes wide open. "Claire, what are you talking about? You left, you left and you didn't tell anyone. You didn't tell me!"

He stood up and wanted to leave. Wanted to leave this place, this town. He wanted to be as far from her as he could be.  
She was breaking down and he didn't want to be the one to console her, to make her feel better. He didn't feel like he could be strong enough.

"Claire, I, I'm sorry but I can't be your hero. I can't be the one you come to when you're in trouble. Not anymore, not again. "

He took her coat and went to the door opening it. "You'll have to find someone else to ease your conscience."

She looked at him. He was not being insensitive. He was protecting himself. He was protecting himself from all the pain and all the trouble she could bring. He had fought many battles those two years. He had almost died. Some people he deeply loved _had_ died. He had saved lots of people who had no idea what he had sacrificed. And his only reward was that: living alone in an empty apartment, trying not to care about things and people who couldn't give him the love he needed. And she knew she could not give him the love he needed.

"I don't know where else to go", she said. She couldn't fight it, she couldn't deny it. She was being dragged to an end. She needed him. She needed someone to help her.

He looked down. Not ready to face her. Not strong enough to face her.

"You're invulnerable, Claire. You'll figure something out."

She tried not to take things too personally. She knew she was putting a lot on him by just showing up at his door after disappearing like she had, so she swallowed her tears.

"Matt lives not far from here. Go to him. He'll let you in." Peter finished.

He gave her his address. She nodded and studied his features as he did so. He was 31 now, and yet he still seemed so young. He had absorbed her healing power much more than she thought he would.

She took the coat from his hands and felt his touch as her hand brushed his. He didn't seem to care though as his expression remained impassive. But his touch was still enough to make her heart beat so fast that it could break under the pressure.

She started to leave and was determined not to look back. Her name on his lips made her shiver but she did not turn back. She wasn't looking back.

"Tell me you'll be at Matt's tomorrow," she heard him say.

This was more a plea than a demand. But he was not ready to let her know that just now. He only wanted to be sure she'd be there.

"I have nowhere else to go", she repeated as if the statement in itself was enough. She never had anywhere to go those last two years. She prepared to go on, but he didn't seem to let go.

"Was it worth it?" he asked.

She wondered if he was going to start a conversation now that he had kicked her out of his apartment. "Leaving me? Was it worth it?" he asked again.

In those two years, she had tried to discover who she was.  
In those two years, she had tried to understand the nature of her world.

She looked down, biting her lower lip. "No, Peter, nothing was worth losing you. But some things…," she began while glancing quickly at him.

In those two years, she had learnt to consider her power as a gift not as a burden.

"There are things you can't fight", she finished. "See you soon I guess"

A bitter smile appeared on Peter's face.

"See you" he repeated as an after thought. She had soon disappeared and he felt like the anxiety was suffocating him. What if she had gone again? And what were those things you couldn't fight?

What things had been be strong enough that they couldn't have fought them together?

He closed his door. And it felt like for the third time in his life, his heart was being ripped out. She still had that power over him. No matter how hard he had tried to prevent it.

Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her.

He loved her then and he loved her now. As much as he wished he didn't, it was true. He loved her. It was just one of those things he couldn't fight.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2 Ends lead to New Beginnings

**Author's note: **Thanks for all the reviews guys! It's appreciated! About this chapter, there's one detail about Peter's power that differ from the canon, because when I wrote the fic, there wasn't much known about Peter's power. In the fic, Peter borrows powers when he's in direct contact with the other Heroes. He doesn't borrow powers permanently.

**Summary:** _Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then, and he loved her now._

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes, or Peter, or Claire, or any other characters. Everything belong to Tim Kring, the NBC and co.

**Chapter 2: When ends lead to new beginnings.**

He would be lying if he said that he didn't find sleep that night. He was so emotionally and physically exhausted that as soon as she left, he crawled down to the couch and slept there, not having the strength to actually walk to his bedroom. Or maybe it was because the sweet scent of her perfume still lingered in the air there. Maybe it was a bit of both.

He wondered if it had been a dream. He wondered if it had been a good or a bad dream. He didn't seem capable of making up his mind. But it surely couldn't have been real. Claire had… _disappeared_. Two years ago.  
And yet, the evidence that she had been there lay in the cup of coffee that still sat untouched on the table.

He quickly got up from the couch only to find that his head hurt like hell. He stumbled past the table, and almost collided with the door of the bathroom. That was Peter on his groggy days: unable to think straight and logical thoughts of what he had to do and what he had to say. But to everyone else that's exactly what he was; the logical one. Well most people thought so. Peter however, along with a select few others could see the truth, that he was still pretty much a dreamer. A dreamer, an idealist, someone ready to fight, someone meant to do extraordinary things.

But Peter had never been stupid either and he hated to feel like a fool. And he certainly hated himself at the moment for feeling like a fool. For what exact reasons he felt like this, he still wasn't sure. But the fact alone was enough to make him the more unnerved about the whole thing.

He took a shower and wanted to stay under the hot water forever. He wanted to wash all those thoughts away, all those heartbreaking thoughts and memories that haunted him at the moment. In a nutshell, those last two years. But sooner or later, Peter would have to come out of his shower, and get ready, for no one can stay hidden under a shower; or anywhere at all, forever. No one has the power to disappear, except Claude. And Claire. Peter had to get out of this shower; he had to get out to know she hadn't disappeared. He needed to see a cup of coffee lying on Matt's table.

But what if she had never made it to Matt? Then Matt would never know Peter had seen her. No one would ever know. And Peter wouldn't tell a soul. Because with time, eventually, Peter would think it was all a dream. And he would forget the pain of seeing her just to loose her again.

Though, when Peter left the comfort of the hot water, his heart started to beat faster. He had to know, and he had to know as soon as possible. He didn't want her to be a dream. He wanted her to be real. And he wanted to hear that she wasn't going away again. He almost cursed himself for wasting such precious time under the shower trying to solve the mystery of his feelings.

He quickly put clean clothes on and decided to head straight to Matt's. Straight to where the answers of his questions laid.

It didn't take long to get to Matt's. Actually, by standing on the middle of the street, Peter could actually point all the different apartments of their society of Heroes. Peter stayed a little further away from the others, but it was only a question of convenience. Too many powers were too much to handle. Even now, at such a distance, he could feel that Niki was angry and fighting with Jessica in her apartment. He could feel it because it always affected him, even if he controlled it better now. Peter tried not to focus on that thought and Niki's power and preferred to forget the times where he had switched to uninhibited Peter.

Hiro, Ando, Matt, Niki, DL, Micah… he knew there were so many more of them in the world, but these ones were special… they seemed to have formed a small group. They protected each other, fought for each other, saved each other. They were a family.

Peter made his way through the street. But as he arrived in front of Matt's building, he made his mind up and preferred to be surprised rather than disappointed. '_She has probably left, like a coward'_was the key sentence of what he called the 'don't expect too much from life' therapy. He pressed the intercom and waited for someone to answer on the other side.

Matt's voice was soon heard, a sleepy and grumpy voice. Clearly, Matt was having a bad time too this morning.

"Yeah?"

"It's me."

"Oh, Peter. We were waiting for you," Matt said while opening the door.

"I'll be up in a minute", said Peter pushing the door open and entering the building.

They were waiting for him. So she was there. She was still there. She hadn't lied.

'_Stop that Peter, she never was a liar' _he thought.  
_'No, just a heartbreaker,' _thought another part of him.

Peter moaned. Niki really had to stop being angry and get control over Jessica again.

Peter was soon at Matt's door but he didn't need to knock. Matt had already opened the door for him to enter when he got there.

"Peter, stop thinking so loud, you're giving me headache" was the greeting Peter received from the grumpy man who was massaging his temples.

"Welcome to my world," Peter replied, walking inside.

"Why is it that I can't even make myself stop hearing your thoughts? You're too intense man." Matt went on while he closed the door behind Peter.

Peter sighed as he was putting his coat on the couch.

"Well, I guess I had lots of things going on in my mind lately…"

"You mean since yesterday?" Matt corrected casually while heading for his kitchen.

Peter smiled as he turned but he didn't seem to pay much attention to Matt. He was too busy looking around. And Matt didn't need to face Peter to know why.

"She is in the bathroom, you stalker" Matt said amused.

Peter grimaced. _'Stop reading my thoughts_.'

'_Stop thinking so loudly_.'

Peter smiled again and observed Matt as he was taking two cups off the shelf.

Since Nathan's death, Matt had become the closest person to Peter, and probably the best friend he ever had. The fact that Matt could read thoughts and that Peter consequently could too, helped of course. Sure the first few times had been hard since the uncontrolled power of sharing and hearing thoughts caused them awful headaches, but they had both come to control it and since Matt had divorced Janice -not long after they had first saved the world- they had spent lots of time together, forming a close bond and having private conversations during public events.

When Peter realized what he was doing or rather thinking, he pushed the thought away quickly but it was too late. Matt giggled and turned towards Peter who sighed. Peter knew he had heard his whole pathetic point of view on male bonding. "I love you too sweetie," Matt said with a smile.

"Oh, bite me," Peter returned, desperately failing at hiding a smile.

Peter took the cup Matt was holding and sat at the kitchen table. He had reverted to expressionless Peter again- tired, weary… Matt said nothing and was not even trying to read Peter's thoughts, knowing too well the emotional rollercoaster that was going on in Peter's mind right now.

"When are you going to ask?" Matt questioned, thinking of a simple way to make Peter talk about the situation.

"Why would I need to ask when you can hear my thoughts?" Peter said teasingly.

Automatically, he put a hand on his forehead to massage it but realized as he was about to do so that the headache had disappeared. A small smile appeared on his face.

"She healed the headache?" continued Matt while filling the cups with coffee.

"She did," Peter said like it was some sort of due payback. "Would be better if she didn't provoke them though."

"Would be better if you didn't whine so much," Matt corrected again, swallowing his coffee in one go.

"What?" Peter said offended. "I don't whine. Much."

Matt said nothing but thought nonetheless. _'I've heard the words 'I'm so tired' come out of your head at least 10 times since you arrived.'_

"You can't always be the nicest guy on the planet, Matt," Peter continued. "Or else you pay for it the hard way."

That Peter was talking about something completely different from their original conversation wasn't lost on Matt. But Matt also knew that Peter had dealt with huge confidence issues since Claire had left him. His abilities were, it seemed, the only thing Peter found worthy about himself.

"You'll always be a nice guy, Peter, no matter how hard you try not to. She thinks so too," Matt added, pointing the bathroom.

Peter looked up at Matt. "I kicked her out of my apartment late at night yesterday and she tells you I'm a nice guy?"

"She didn't exactly say it aloud."

Matt shifted uncomfortably. He seemed then to focus his gaze on the 'oh so interesting' coffee cup that was now empty. Peter looked like he wasn't going to let Matt go with this one.

"Wait, you read her thoughts? I thought you didn't do that anymore. Well, except with me."

If it would have been helpful, Matt would have hid under the table. But if Peter really wanted to know, he had a scanner instead of a mind, so getting to hear Matt's thoughts through the table wasn't a hard thing.

"Hey, man, I just wanted to see if she was hiding anything from me."

Peter now looked really interesting. It was, in fact, all that he wanted to know. What was she hiding?

"And?"

"She does", Matt admitted before continuing as to moderate his words "But she also knows I'm reading thoughts and I don't know how she does it but she does a good job hiding her intentions."

"It means she can't be trusted?"

Peter didn't know if he was awaiting a yes or a no. He supposed he would hate both answers. Matt's answer wasn't exactly what he expected though.

"It means she went through hell Peter and I think she needs us. She genuinely needs us. She cried in my arms like a baby for an hour last night. I'm as angry as you for how she left two years ago. I loved her too. She was like a sister to me. But it seems she had her reasons. And I don't think we should just kick her out of our lives like she meant nothing."

Matt paused, looking at how Peter seemed to take the news. Not good it seemed. "Besides, I'm sure you want as much as I want to find out what happened to her," Matt finally added.

Peter sighed. "Did she say anything?"

"Not much. She was tired. And she didn't seem like she needed to suffer an interrogation at the time."

"She disappears for two years and you let her sleep without bombarding her with questions. _You_ are the nice guy," Peter insisted.

They didn't hear the sound of the water anymore so they stopped, almost holding their breath. The door of the bathroom opened some seconds later. Peter caught the glimpse of a little body wrapped in a towel. Oh God! she still looked so beautiful, so desirable. How come he couldn't control that, fight that? And in a second, it all came back to him. The memories. The joy. The little moments. The taste of her skin. The love.

"She needs us," Matt said again.

Peter got back to Matt and wondered if he had heard his last thought. His last cry of pain. "We could at least hear what she has to say."

Peter frowned. "What do you mean?"

"She claims she has important things to say. She knows… some things", Matt added vaguely. "She asked me to call Mohinder and the others if they were willing to talk to her. I had to tell her about Mohinder."

"So now, she is a heroine bearing the secrets of our lives."

"Stop being bitchy Peter. She wants to help. I can feel it, and so should you."

Matt took a deep breath, knowing Peter wasn't going to like what he had to say. "And she wanted to help when she left."

This was just the thing Peter didn't want to hear. He didn't want her to be a martyr, a victim. Or even a hero. He wanted her to be a loathsome person that he had every right to hate. Even if he didn't exactly hate her.

"WHAT? What are you talking about now?" he said loudly.

"Lower your voice please," Matt said, glancing at the bedroom where the young girl had disappeared. "I just caught a thought or two. Nothing much."

"What did she say?" Peter asked whispering and leaning towards Matt.

"She said she loved us, all of us. And that she did what she had to do in order to protect us."

Peter leaned back, obviously a little irritated.

"Ok, it's clear. This is crazy. This girl is crazy. I don't know what happened to her and you know what, I don't care," Peter said, getting agitated.

He couldn't bear the idea that she had left for noble reasons. It was unfair. He had to hate her, she couldn't be a hero.

"Come on Peter, don't…"

But Peter had already started to get up from the chair and storm out of the room. He was taking his coat off the couch.

"_Peter, don't_!" Matt said through telepathy. "_Don't leave. Listen to her. You're overreacting_."

Matt knew he had let slip the word innocently, but he really shouldn't have said it because he knew it would make Peter angry. And it had. He turned to Matt and saw her standing. There in the background. She was looking at them.  
Peter looked at Matt and probably said something, something she couldn't catch, because it was said in thought so only Matt could hear. And then, he left the room. He would have flew if he had been able to.

Claire remained motionless as she saw Peter storm out of the apartment. "He does hate me, doesn't he?"

Matt looked sad and turned to her, before going back to make more coffee that would be greatly needed. "It will take time Claire. It will take time for all of us."  
She looked down, like a little girl that had just been grounded. But she was 23 now. She wasn't a little girl anymore. Though, her body didn't seem to suffer the tolls of age. So many contradictions in such a little woman.

She sat at the kitchen table and took the cup of coffee in front of her. He thought of Peter, sitting there a few minutes ago, having the same expression, the same tired and sad eyes, having the same dreamy air. Matt sighed. Broken things weren't always fixable. Matt knew that all too well.

And Peter wasn't overreacting. He knew that too.

"_I gave her my heart and she stamped on it. So much for overreaction_."

Peter stopped a minute as he arrived down stairs. He leaned against the wall and put a hand on his heart. It hurt. It hurt so much he wanted to rip it out himself. And here it started again, the headache. He got outside the building and breathed deeply.

How are you supposed to welcome back the person that broke your heart? The person you gave your soul to. Would you keep the door open to the love that had hurt you more than an enemy ever had?

Peter gasped but air didn't seem to reach his lungs. He felt like he was suffocating. He needed air. He needed to be far away from here.


	3. Chapter 3 Broken things mend Or don't

**Author's note: **Thanks again for all the reviews guys! I'm glad you're liking where this is going!

**Summary:**_Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then, and he loved her now._

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes, or Peter, or Claire, or any other characters. Everything belong to Tim Kring, the NBC and co.

**Chapter 3: Broken things mend. Or don't.**

_She leant on him. He could smell her perfume. And he could feel how his senses became aroused in her presence… She had that much power over him.  
He didn't remember how it all started. One day he was her hero, the next day, he was her lover. He couldn't remember either when he had first realized he loved her. Maybe it had been there, all along._

_All he knew now was that kissing her felt like the right thing to do. It felt like the best thing to do. So he pressed his lips on hers in a delicate and tender embrace. Time was fading. Nothing existed anymore but this sweet surrender. _

_When they broke the kiss, she bent a little more while he was wondering why he had waited so long to show her how much she really meant to him._

"_Since when?" she whispered in his ear._

"_A week? A month? Forever?" he said, unsure himself of the answer. "I don't care. I love you now. It's all I know," he added, kissing her again. "And your lips are the only lips I want to kiss for the rest of my life."_

"_Lucky me!" she said, smiling._

_She caressed his cheek, softly, tenderly, and lay kisses the line of his jaw. It didn't seem enough for him though, and he turned his head to capture her lips again in a kiss that left them gasping for air._

"_I'm so lucky you found me," she said again, resting her forehead on his._

"_It wasn't luck. I was destined to find you. Meant to," he looked deeply into her sparkling green eyes. "We were meant to be."_

_Peter smiled broadly, but it had nothing to do with the girl in front of him. "Matt asks you to take those nasty thought of yours out of your head or he will have to get out of the apartment if he doesn't want to feel like a pervert."_

_Claire smiled. "I don't care," she said, kissing Peter as a provocation towards the telepath. "He can do whatever he wants. I love my nasty thoughts."_

"_He says you have grown up too fast. You're a bold woman with no morals." _

_Peter chuckled at the thought of Matt on the other side of the apartment, hearing what was going on in Claire's mind. If her thoughts reflected his at the moment, Matt surely had something to look red about right now._

"_GO HAVE A DRINK MATT!" Claire yelled._

_Peter let out a small laugh. _

"_FINE!" Matt yelled back._

_Peter and Claire finally heard the door of the apartment being slammed. They were alone now. Even if they had seemed to be all alone every second they had spent with each other those last three years._

_Green eyes met brown eyes. She looked at him like he held the key to her future._

"_So… what we do now?" She whispered quietly._

_He leant towards her as an invitation. She smiled and accepted it. She tilted her head, bent and captured his lips. _

_  
How it all started he couldn't remember. But one day he was her hero, the next day he was her lover._

-----------------------------------------------

Peter shook his head as he pushed the last two days away. He was tired. He hadn't fought though. There was no villain to kill. No innocent to save. No cheerleader to rescue.  
Yet, all he wanted to do was sleep. Sleep like he hadn't slept in a lifetime.

He hadn't expected her to wait for him in his doorway like she had done two nights before. Like she used to do before he gave her the keys to his apartment many years before.  
But it would have been a lie not to say that he wasn't disappointed. Even if he couldn't hate more than what he did right now, seeing her, feeling her… it was all he had asked these last two years. To know she was ok.

The shower was cold, the dinner non-existent, and the sleep agitated. Bad dreams chased other bad dreams. And when one thing in his life seemed to be fine, he dreaded for another one. That was Peter, always fearing for others' lives.

The nightmare didn't quite continue though. Peter was awoken by the ring at the door. He swore a little just to realize that it was only 10pm and that the person who dared wake him up wasn't such a bastard after all. It didn't restrain him from thinking of ways to expel the visitor from where he came from though.

"Claire?" Peter said opening the door.

Now, he wished he had put a shirt on. He felt like she was intruding on his privacy.

She had seen him naked before, and yet, the thought of her seeing him shirtless now was just too… enticing. Peter shook mentally his head. What was he thinking anyway?

He tried to contain his embarrassment and just said sharply:

"What do you want?"

"To talk," she said, walking inside and not bothering to wait for his permission this time.

"Please, make yourself at home", he said, a little irritated, closing the door behind her.

She seemed far more confident now than she had done this morning, he thought. Her features were straight and determined. She seemed more a woman than a girl, more a predator than prey.

"Sorry I woke you up," she finally said.

Peter mumbled a few things, all being incomprehensible to her ears. "What did you say Peter? You have to speak up a little, I don't read thoughts."

He could see that she was angry, about what happened two days ago probably. And he didn't need Matt's power to see it. "Ok, so now, you're the angry one. Bite me."

She really looked furious now. "You… you send me away, you don't even want to listen to me, you're saying things behind my back and I shouldn't be angry! Peter, I made it through this for YOU, and you won't even look me in the eyes."

Peter looked up and met her eyes. He realized that she was right. He hadn't watched her since she had first entered the apartment.

"Everything was fine," he said firmly, bitterly, standing straight on his feet. "Everything was fine until you came back. What is it Claire? People stopped paying attention to you?"

"You don't understand," she said impatiently, burning to spill her heart out to him but somehow forcing herself not to.

He wasn't prepared. He didn't want her to. He didn't want her to find her place back in his life. And that fact hurt her more than any type of horror she had seen those last two years. She should have never come back, she should have… she should have died instead.

"I made a mistake, alright, I shouldn't have come" she said as she prepared to storm out of his apartment. But his hand caught her arm and he kept her in the room.

"Peter, let me go, ok?" She said looking from his hand to his eyes. "I was wrong. You clearly don't want to hear what I have to say, so I'll just leave a note to Matt and you'll read it. As long as you're willing to read something I wrote."

She was bitter and aggressive. And she didn't seem to feel like she had committed any fault. Like leaving him hadn't been something terrible.

"Say what you have to say and then get out of my life, once and for all."

"Is that what you really want? For me to get out of your life?"

Peter looked at her, incredulous, not believing what he was hearing. "God Claire, we lived together for a year, then one day, you disappear, I don't hear a thing for two years, you reappear and expect things to still be like they were. What world are you living in?"

And then it happened. That change of tone, that change of expression. All her confidence seemed to have disappeared. It had been replaced by softness, weakness, vulnerability, a girl craving for understanding.

He wondered if she hadn't the ability of Niki to split her personality right now.

"It didn't occur to you…"

He raised an eyebrow and his expression seemed to soften as he watched her features relax. He realized then that he was still holding back her arm, he let go of it.

"It didn't occur to you", she said again, "that all this time I died a little bit every day I was away from you, the man I love? It didn't occur to you that the day I left, I didn't just break your heart, I broke mine too."

He looked up into her eyes, and as if her weakness had invaded him, he felt so fragile at this particular moment that one of her smiles could have put him down forever.

"So why did you?" he asked as if his life depended on her answer.

"I had to save my life. And yours."

He shook his head. "What was so dangerous that you had to run away to save our lives?"

"Do you know what it's like to have my power Peter? Do you know how it feels?"

She took a step forward and became agitated. "I CAN'T DIE", she said insisting on every word. "And I… I don't age normally."

She wasn't telling him anything new. He knew all that already. He knew everything about her power.

"And you don't either. Not as long as you're near me," she finished.

He wanted to pierce her soul, dying for answers.

"Everything that happened," she went on, "everything that… I was lost; I was young and I… I didn't know what to do, what was right and wrong… We had saved the world. My dad had died, you had almost exploded, there was us… and as much as it was wonderful, it never was without complications… And I wanted to die Peter…" she was crying then, "I wanted to die so badly just to see that I really could. I didn't want to see all the people I care about disappear ages before me. And I didn't want you to experience the same thing. I didn't want you to cry for your brother, your friends, everybody you care about, and live dozens or hundreds of years more than them. I know that eventually you would have blamed it on me," she finished almost whispering.

Claire was wiping away the tear that rolled down on her cheek while Peter was just trying to swallow the information. He absorbed her healing power, so he wasn't aging as fast as the others, probably. He had never given the thing too much thought. Though, she clearly had. Was she right? Would he blame it on her one day? Would he?

"You didn't just leave because of that, did you?" was the only question he could come up with to break the silence.

She nodded. "I did," she admitted, looking down. "But then, some weird things started to happen to me."

"Weirder than being invincible?" he asked astonished, looking in her eyes that were now fixated on him again.

She let a small smile light up her face. She went towards him before finally sitting on a chair.

"It's a long story Peter. A long and dark story and there are parts you are not going to like. And I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it unless you are ready to be strong enough for the both of us Peter, because I just come back from hell. I come back from hell, and I need to find the man I love again. I need to find the man who loved me."

Peter thought a moment. Five minutes ago, he wanted to forget everything about her and now he felt like he couldn't live without her. But could he be that man she was desperately searching for?

"I'm not asking for forgiveness Peter," she added, thinking, rightly, that maybe she had gone too far in her plea. "I'm asking for understanding, and… friendship, maybe."

The maturity of her words struck him. She had often been much more adult than many of them, maybe because her powers had given her heavy responsibilities. And her maturity, lost for some, was probably what had attracted him to her the first time. She wasn't just a cheerleader. She never had been just a cheerleader.

"You can be so much more", he muttered.

She frowned and he realized he had said that all aloud. "I, huh, I was just thinking aloud."

He went to the kitchen and she watched him from the corner of her eyes, wondering what he was planning to do.

"I feel like this is going to be a long night. We need coffee," he hinted with a reassuring smile.

She nodded and put her hand on her head. She suffered from such a restraint right now that it was hurting like nothing had ever hurt her. She knew how to keep things under control. She just wasn't sure she wanted to. He was everything to her. And she loved him.

And maybe it was because so much love and pain was radiating from her now that he could feel her behind him, watching him, thinking of him…

He felt the tension in his whole body as memories of smells, tastes and sounds came back to him.  
When he turned back to see where she was, he didn't need time to figure it out, because here she was, just behind him, ready to kiss him.

He didn't say or do anything to prevent it but just let it happen. She had that much power over him.

He didn't know how she had gotten off her seat without him noticing it. All he knew was that he didn't stop her when she kissed him. He didn't stop her though he hated her 30 minutes ago.

That was how complex the situation was. How complex his feelings were. He guessed it was how complex love was.

How their kiss turned into a passionate sex scene he couldn't remember either. One day he hated her, the next day, he craved for more of her kisses.  
How in the middle of what was probably the most important discussion of their lives they had gone straight to action? That was a mystery too. But it wasn't important.

It then struck him that maybe since the first moment he had found her standing in his doorway two days ago, since the moment his eyes had met hers, all he had really wanted to do was kiss her.


	4. Chapter 4 I've tried so hard to let go

**Author's note: **Thanks for all the reviews!

**Summary:**_Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then, and he loved her now._

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes, or Peter, or Claire, or any other characters. Everything belong to Tim Kring, the NBC and co.

**Chapter 4: I've tried so hard to let go…**

Some people thought Peter had become a little selfish over the years. Some thought he had become childish.  
But Peter had lost a lot. It had made him angry and though people referred to him as being the logical thinker, he had always been passionate. So spending the night with Claire though she had broken his heart wasn't as stupid as it seemed. But waking up the next day without the girl in question in his arms was just a stab in the back and even though she was just in the kitchen waiting for him to wake up, the symbolism of the scene just made him realize how stupid and naïve he could be sometimes.

He shook his head and forced a smile on his face as he entered the kitchen. She had put on one of his shirts and shorts which were both too big for her but he couldn't help noticing how gorgeous she looked…

He pushed the last thought away and tried to concentrate. But he didn't say anything, not knowing what to say, where to start. Should he apologize? Should they talk about what had happened? Should they talk about why she had run away with his heart in her pocket two years ago?

"We do have the most screwed up relationship ever, don't we?" she said trying a little joke to cheer the atmosphere.

"I… definitely think we do," he said trying to be as natural as possible, but hiding from her gaze by searching for a cup in the cupboard.

Claire said nothing for a while. Nor did he. What could follow the night they shared? What could be more explicit than that night?

"Yesterday", Claire started while Peter turned to face her, "before we, huh, before we went…"

"…Bestial…" Peter helped her, seeing her searching for words.

"Got carried away," she corrected seriously.

He smiled inside. The hunger in their kisses had been passionate, violent AND bestial. And there was no other word for it.

"You kissed me," he insisted as a way to point out that she had started it.

"You kissed me back", she said firmly, staring into his brown eyes.

"You really aren't going to let anything be your fault, are you?"

Peter started to feel a little irritated.

"What are you talking about?" She asked sharply.

"You know what I'm talking about."

He stopped what he was doing and stared at her.

"Ok, is this the typical stormy argument we have after everytime we make love?" she complained. "Because I swear we're never having sex again if we can't have that damn conversation we should have had yesterday!"

Peter was about to open his mouth to have the last word but decided not to say anything. Now was probably not the best moment to start an argument, she was right. One of them had to let go.

"I'm listening," he said, finally relaxing a little.

"Good," she said, her features now much more calm.

He was impressed by her commanding skills. But he wondered if that was in a good or bad way. When had she become so determined anyway?

He sensed that she was having a hard time saying something and he felt like he wouldn't like the truth that much. In fact he sensed the bad news from so far that he sat before he'd need to. He didn't dare to unlock their gaze though. Not caring that it just made her feel more uncomfortable.

"First of all", she said, "you have to understand that I didn't mean it to turn out that way."

"Claire", Peter said menacingly. "Now."

"You were gone for the day. With Matt, Nicki, Hiro, everyone except me. You had left me behind. Like usual."

"I didn't want…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you didn't want me to get hurt", she interrupted. "Peter, how ironic is it that you felt like overprotecting the only unbreakable person of all of us?"

Peter said nothing, and wasn't going to start a speech about how you protect your loved ones whether they're presumably indestructible or not.

"Anyway," Claire went on. "I was with Micah, and this guy came. He attacked us."

Peter leant forward, looking interested. "I tried to fight back, but I don't have super strength, so I failed. He threatened Micah; he told me that someone wanted to talk to me. And then, there was this guy. The Haitian guy."

Peter frowned, pieces clicking together in his mind, starting to make sense.

"He told me that he knew I was afraid. How afraid I was of my power…"

Peter was having a hard time believing what he was hearing. He had lived with her for a year. He had loved her, had been her best friend for years, but he had never known. He had never known she was so confused about her power. How come he hadn't spotted that? How come he hadn't spotted the confusion in the woman he lived with?

"He told me he could help me, that there was someone I had to meet. Someone… like me," she finally said.

"Someone like you?" Peter repeated taken aback. "But Claire, you should have sensed the trap. No one's like you. We're all unique. Special."

"It wasn't a trap," she said looking back at him. "Someone's like me."

She paused. "My dad, Peter. My real dad. He has the power of spontaneous regeneration."

"But Claire, your real dad… it's… it's Linderman," Peter said, jumping from his chair. "Tell me you seriously didn't think about meeting him! You know what he did! To us! To all of us! He started the experiments! He finances the militia!"

"They told me that if I didn't go, they'd take Micah," she said feeling agitated by the need to explain her behaviour. "They would lock him in a cell. And I wanted to meet him. Peter. I wanted to meet him; I wanted to know who I was."

"So you left," he said bitterly.

She looked down, not daring to watch his hurt eyes. "I didn't mean to stay that long. I thought they'd let me go."

She ran one hand though her hair. "I didn't want you to know where I was. I knew you'd worry. I knew you'd come and I didn't want anything to happen to you. And I supposed they wouldn't let me tell you. The Haitian, he erased Micah's memory so he wouldn't remember what had happened. I guess it worked..."

"Very well if I may add" Peter said bitterly before biting his tongue for sounding so childish. "What happened then?"

Claire paused like she had just fought a long and hard battle.

"I met him, my biological dad. And it was… he is like me Peter. Just like me. No matter how hard he gets hurt, he doesn't feel a thing. And I admit for the time I spent with him, it was wonderful. I learnt so many things, about my condition, about what I could do."

"Wonderful?" Peter said jerking his head back. "That's great. Just brilliant! So what? You were so much better with him that you decided to stay."

Claire let a small tear roll down on her cheek. "Things changed then. I spent a week with him. I wanted to tell you, I missed you and I wanted to come back, but he wouldn't let me. I realized I wasn't free anymore… He told me that you wouldn't understand me. Not the way he understood me. He tried to make me think I was better off without you."

"And you believed him?" Peter asked hesitantly.

"No, I didn't! I love you more than my own life!" Claire almost yelled, a tear rolling on her cheek again as she was jumping from her seat.

She ran to Peter's side and kissed him passionately, like she needed to prove what she had just said, that she loved him. That she loved him so much that her heart was painfully beating as her lips were on his. Peter let her kiss him and kissed her back. It lasted so long… he couldn't remember when it had all started. All he felt now was her forehead leaning against his, her breath melting with his. He looked into her sad green eyes.

"I wanted to come back," she said, caressing his cheek.

Peter felt his heart hurt again. He pushed his head back, trying to break that proximity which made him crazy.

"He didn't let you," he said.

"Not exactly."

Peter looked up, and saw she had taken a few steps back, feeling hurt that he was probably keeping some distance with her.  
He felt that they were arriving to the part he really wouldn't like, the part that would make him mad for not having been there. The part where he would hate himself for having lived so comfortably when the one he loved had suffered like hell.

"He told me that the militia was tracing you," she went on. "He told me it wasn't his fault, but they had finally found you, because you weren't careful enough... So I ran. But not to come back like I wanted to."

She paused and finally said it. "I went to the FBI."

"You exchanged your life for ours," Peter muttered, understanding everything now.

Claire sighed. "I knew what those experiments were; I knew they could kill you all. And I wasn't sure you'd be able to escape them if they had found you…"

"So you went there and proposed them a deal."

She nodded. "I asked them to ignore you and keep you off their files. Instead, they could do all the experiments they wanted, on me."

"But you were a little girl Claire! You were barely 21! That's young! That was too young for acting all Wonder woman!"

"It was okay for you to jump off a building to rescue me so you'd get hurt, but he wasn't right for me to get into a building while I'm invulnerable?" she yelled. "You've never trusted me Peter. You never trusted my abilities. You know I can't get hurt, but you always acted like I could. Face it, I'm not made of glass."

She spat out her last words and it gave him the impression that she had accumulated lots of anger over the years, against him but most of all against her. Against her power.

He saw her fists clench, her features becoming tensed. Rage was going through her body. The Claire he knew had never been enraged. So many feelings that he didn't recognize in the girl he had once loved.

But he probably had a part in this mess too. She had done everything in her power to save them, and here he was yelling at her about how stupid it was to do that.  
But the fact was that he was enraged at what had happened to her. Not at her. Did he really want to know what had happened to the girl he loved? Was he prepared to face the fact that he hadn't been able to protect her?

"I'm sorry", he finally said.

He put his hand on hers in what seemed like the most natural gesture. But she pulled her hand away from his touch immediately.

"I'm not sure I want to talk about it anymore. You heard enough for today, and I'm feeling tired," she said fighting back tears and avoiding his gaze.

She had been through hell indeed. And she was now back in their lives, in his life. But for how long exactly would she be back? And what did it imply for the life he had tried to create in her absence?

"Claire, I understand you're… huh… I understand you've been through a lot, and I, I've been through a lot too and we've –" he said referring to all his fellow heroes- "we've been all through a lot and…"

"I know", she said, like she wanted to spare him the words.

He looked at her face. Peter felt another meaning in those words.

"What do you mean 'you know'?"

"I can't go into details Peter, I don't want to. What's done is done. We can't change things", she said, starting to feel agitated again.

"Wait, what do you mean? You knew? You were there?" he shouted. "All this time you were there."

Her agitation grew. The more he spoke, the more she felt nervous and the more he realized how much she was still hiding from him.

"You were there. You weren't far away from here. All this time and you never told."

"I couldn't," she said. "It was already a privilege they'd turn a blind eye to my absences."

"What are you talking about? Claire, you're not making a sense."

At that precise moment, Claire broke down but what Peter thought were tears was only the pain of a powerful headache that was blowing Claire's mind. His mouth gasped open in horror.

It was Claire. She couldn't be hurt. She couldn't feel pain.

"Claire" he whispered.

He rushed to her side as she was holding her head in her hands. "Peter, it hurts."

She was crying now. Crying from the pain and he wished he could take this pain away.

"Go please, go!" she yelled

He stared at her and was impressed that she was kicking him out of his own apartment.

"Please," she said, crying from the pain.

And he realized it seemed a matter of death or life, so he did as ordered. He did as ordered and ran to Matt and sent the ex-cop do what he couldn't do. Be the one Claire needed right now. Be her hero.

He stayed in Matt's apartment and waited. What seemed seconds transformed into minutes that turned into hours. Peter wasn't even sure how much time had passed or what he had done during this eternity. Actually, he was starting to wonder what he had done without her during those two years. Had he lived at all? He seemed like he had held his breath for this particular reunion only.

When Matt came back, the look on his face was more than enough to make Peter's worry multiply. This was probably the most silent conversation ever for some, but for two people who could read each other's thoughts, that was one intense moment.

Matt was carrying Claire in his arms. She seemed asleep or unconscious. Peter ran to her side. _"Is she okay?"_

"_For now, she is,"_ Matt thought.

He carried her to his own bedroom, followed by Peter who looked on as his friend delicately put the motionless form on the bed and covered her with the sheets.

"_What happened?"_ Peter asked. _"It's Super Claire; she never had a headache or even a cough."_

Matt sighed. "_Seems like she's not Super Claire anymore." _

"_What? What you're talking about?" _said Peter gently stroking the girl's hair.

"_I'm not sure myself, but her cries for help_…" Matt paused; the cries replaying in his head over and over, a pain like he had never heard…

"_Her powers have mutated. Or at least it seems like it,"_ he went on. _"Intense feelings and situations make her… loose control."_

"_All our powers evolve Matt, Mohinder told us they would. But no power caused headaches like these," _Peter continued by pointing at Claire.

"I don't know, ok," Matt snapped, before looking at the unconscious form on his bed again and relaxing. "_I'm not Mohinder, I'm no geneticist. But it looks as if her mind is fighting the mutation._

"_You mean she is loosing her power?" _Peter asked, astonished.

"_Yeah, at first, it's what it looks like. The problem is… it's like her body tries to take over… her mind," _Matt explained, unsure himself of what exactly was going on.

Peter gritted between his teeth. "This isn't right", he said. "This isn't right."

"_I get the feeling her mutation isn't going well Peter_," Matt thought, turning to Peter. "… I think… I think she's dying."

Peter stared at Matt. He didn't believe him. He couldn't be right. She was invincible. She was his invincible cheerleader. She could survive anything.

All different emotions were colliding in Peter's head but all he seemed to care about right now was… him. Selfishly, him. It was all about _her_ _life_ and _his feelings_.

He stared at the motionless form in the bedroom, when Matt took him by the arm and dragged him outside the room. He closed the door and headed for the living room but Peter stayed motionless in front of the now closed door, still seeing her somehow, still feeling her.  
Peter had learned enough about life. He had learnt about suffering. And he knew what to do. He knew what was right. He knew what _helped._

He put a hand on the door and let a tear rolled down.  
Saying goodbye was sometimes hard, sometimes easy. And sometimes what seemed like goodbyes, weren't goodbyes at all.

Peter missed everything they had shared, but since he had let her into his life again, it had been only mess and destruction. Losing her had been hard enough. Finding her again had been even harder. Losing her a second time… he wouldn't survive it.  
He couldn't let her die. But he couldn't let her have his heart either. Not again.

"I miss you Claire", he said a hand on the door. "I miss the idea of you, I miss who you were… I'm just not sure I love who you are."

That would be Peter's goodbye.


	5. Chapter 5 The Monster in me

Author's note: I'm really sorry I took so long to update this guys

**Author's note: **I'm really sorry I took so long to update this guys. But still a big thank you for the reviews!!

**Summary:**_Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then, and he loved her now._

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes, or Peter, or Claire, or any other characters. Everything belong to Tim Kring, the NBC and co.

**Chapter 5: The monster in me.**

_Two weeks later._

"Waffles!!" she exclaimed, cheering up a little.

"I knew you'd love them", he said, smiling, with a perfect English accent.

"It's been… like forever since I had one of those" Claire continued like a little girl who had just received a Christmas present.

She gave the Japanese man a kiss on the cheek and he blushed. Hiro was still Hiro, whatever happened, whatever could happen. She admired that aptitude of his to stay true to himself.

"I'm happy to see you smile cheerleader Claire."

Cheerleader Claire... He always called her like that. Even if it was 6 years since she had actually been a cheerleader. That was it. Cheerleader Claire.

She gave him another kiss on the cheek and Hiro blushed even more.

"That's for being the nicest guy ever," she added with a grateful smile.

She didn't notice Peter staring at her, like he always did when she wasn't looking at him. She never noticed him when he was cutting himself off from the others, sighing, and thinking of her. She never noticed the way he'd take care of things for her without telling her it was him.

She thought he had decided not to ever talk to her again. On one hand, she was grateful for that, because the things she had said and the things she still had to say… in fact, she preferred to keep them to herself. She wanted to keep that a memory, hopefully soon forgotten.  
Everything seemed like old times. Expect Nathan and Mohinder weren't there anymore, and Niki and DL had another son now, and well, Claire wasn't in the gang like she was before. But given the fact that she had been back for two weeks now, things could have been much worse.

Peter felt a hint of jealousy when she kissed Hiro on the cheek. He wondered if she tried to make him jealous. But he realized how stupid he sounded thinking that. He had been the one to push her away. What could he complain about?

"_Stop staring at her like that, or your eyes might get burned_" Peter heard in his head.

Peter saw Matt looking at him. It was funny when they had a private conversation in the middle of a crowded place. No one was afraid of Matt or Peter because they all trusted them and knew that they wouldn't intrude on their privacy by reading thoughts, but it was annoying when the two shared private jokes that made them smile and they did not share the fun with the others. But that was how it was with the family.

"_I'm not staring at her,_ he said telepathically, _my eyes just… wandered and stopped for a moment"_

"_Yeah, a moment that lasted five minutes."_

"_So, now you were staring at me for five minutes_," Peter observed with a smile.

Matt smiled. "_Not gay. Never. Don't dream."_

Peter let out a small laugh that made everyone turn . They looked at him and casually –and rightfully- just thought that he was talking to Matt again.

"_How is she doing?"_ Peter asked seriously to Matt after everyone returned to their talk.

He hadn't approach Claire since that fateful headache. The fact that his presence had been so painful to her and the horrible discovery Matt had made that same night had drawn him away from her.

He hadn't gone to Matt's in a lifetime. He knew she had asked about him, but though he was researching all day every day about genetics and human evolution so that he could find a way to cure her, he had asked Matt to say that he was on a trip.

Obviously, she had believed him, and hadn't tried to contact Peter since then. He was grateful for that, though a bit hurt. Somehow, he wanted her to want him.

"_Peter! … Peter!"_

Peter snapped back to reality and watched Matt again who sighed with exasperation. "_Sorry, what did you say_?" Peter asked.

"_She's fine… I guess"_

"_You guess or you know?"_

"_I don't know, it's confusing", _Matt said. _"She's confused. It's not the girl we knew." _

"No", Peter said as an afterthought, looking at her. "She's not. _Did_ _she say anything about… about those last two years to you?"_

"_No, she won't let me. It's like she's blocking all her thoughts on that subject. And I… I don't feel like forcing her mental barriers to know. You're the only one she talked to about it and I guess she'll talk about the rest when she's ready."_

"_Yeah, whenever_," said Peter coldly before leaving the room.

There were too many people here, too many powers. And Peter felt weak. Too weak to fight their pressure. He went in Matt's room and lay on the bed, trying to rest and blocking all his thoughts.

Looking at the ceiling above, he remembered how he used to lay like this with Nathan when they were still kids. Nathan would tell him tales of grandeur, he would tell him that the world could be theirs and that they had to fight to win it. Maybe Nathan had been a dreamer too in his own way. Maybe that's what politicians were, cynical dreamers.

He heard the door creak as someone opened it. He hoped it was her, but it wasn't.

"Are you feeling alright?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, just a little…. overwhelmed," Peter said meaningfully before getting back into silence.

Matt came towards the bed, and sat near Peter, waiting, like only Matt knew how to. The silence lasted several minutes.

"Can you do me a favour?" Peter asked finally, the thought popping in his mind.

"Don't ask me that," Matt said, already backing up.

Peter sat up offended. _"Will you wait until I ask it before you read my thoughts_?"

Matt smiled slightly and muttered an inaudible 'Sorry'.

"Right," Peter said, happy that they had came to an agreement. "So, please, will you?"

"I can't Peter. I can't do that. It's invading privacy."

"Like you care about invading mine!" Peter protested.

"That's different and you know it."

Peter paused. Of course it was. Of course what he was asking was invading privacy.

"When I first discovered this power," Matt continued, getting up "some pretty bad things happened because I couldn't control it. And when I finally learnt how to control it, there was one thing I was sure of, you can't listen to what people don't want you to know."

Peter sighed, and really wanted to hit his head against something hard… Matt's voice broke the air.

"It's eating away at you, isn't it? The lack of answers?" he said, sitting again next to Peter. "But you know what Peter, you're never gonna get what you're asking for. Because what you want is not for her to tell you what happened… What you want is to erase the last two years, go back in time, and be there when she left to stop her. Make a new start. What's killing you is that you haven't been a part of her life these last two years, and you know nothing will change that. You have lost two years of _her_ life, and that's _not _something you can change," Matt said again.

Peter didn't know what was so dramatic about that particular moment, but he felt so tired that he nearly broke down into tears. He remembered Nathan, his mother, how he missed them… He missed them so much. He missed Simone too sometimes. He missed her and he missed seeing Isaac happy. He missed Claire, he missed her laugh, her kindness, her vulnerability, he missed the good times they shared, and he missed life before it all happened…

And so he wanted to break down. Break like a little child with whom life had been too hard, a little child with too many responsibilities too soon. 'Not prepared enough', Claude would say.

"I just wish things were like they used to be before."

Matt glanced at him. "But they're not."

Matt knew Peter had gone through hell when Claire had disappeared. She was his cheerleader. The one he was supposed to protect. The one he loved. He hadn't slept in a week and even a year after he still kept having bad dreams everytime he closed his eyes. He searched for her too. He searched for her all over the world, asking for a petite blonde with green eyes. Like there was only one blonde and green-eyed girl in the world.

He had even considered taking Hiro's powers to go back in time and stop her from leaving. But she had left, that was the truth. She hadn't been kidnapped or killed or anything. She had just left. She had left him a note saying 'I love you' and she had left. End of story. At least, that's what they had thought.  
They could have never believed that she wanted to go back, that she had sacrificed…. How could they have known that?

Peter sat up and looked at his reflection in the mirror. How come he still saw the young boy he was six years ago? The young boy he was before it all started: torn, doubtful, lost… What was he waiting for? He had to act, he had to be a man. He shouldn't be on Matt's bed whining again and again.

So he suddenly got up, not listening to Matt calling his name. He was angry, he was furious, and he wanted the world to know it. Not bothering if people were here or not.

"You" he said walking up to Claire while he was entering the lounge again. "You ruined my entire life."

Everyone was startled in the room and turned to look at Peter. Matt came from behind and wanted to bring Peter back to the room. But Peter got rid of his grip while still fixating Claire. "You think you can make me love you, and destroy my heart. You're a bitch. That's what you are."

DL got in the way too and Matt came back to force Peter into his room.

"Peter," DL said, "don't…" but Peter was already hitting DL with his fist.

"… You're not staying here, you hear me?" Peter said to Claire. "You don't belong here".

He was going to take her and throw her from the window, Matt feared it. Peter really was that angry.

"I'd better go," said Niki after making sure that DL was ok. She took her two sons with her, and as Matt nodded, she stormed out of the room. Maybe from the building. God knows with Peter's abilities how far she'd have to go for him not to absorb her schizophrenic ability.

Peter was not calming down though. It took a few minutes, and the time the effect fades, they would have to prevent Peter from hurting Claire… or worse. The four men were already standing between the two of them.

Claire was clearly terrified. She knew Peter, she had seen his double personality a few times before, and she surely didn't want to be his aim.

"If you hadn't been so selfish, you wouldn't have left." Hiro tried to stop Peter's progression but Peter pushed him away.

"You wouldn't have gone like I meant nothing to you."

DL, Matt, Hiro and Ando were now trying to hold Peter back. It worked, but only a little. After all, Peter also had super strength. They all landed on the floor.

"Peter, stop it!" Matt yelled as the young man got dangerously close to Claire whose eyes were now tearful.

"Peter, please", she said, backing up, but ultimately being stopped by the wall behind her.

"Peter!" Matt yelled, getting up again. "You're stronger than him. You're better than this!"

Peter had one hand on Claire's throat now and neither DL, nor Matt, nor Hiro seemed to be able to make him back up… They were all on his back, trying to make him loosen his grip.

"Pet..er…" Claire stammered.

"You can control him," Matt said again as Peter threw him away.

The room became blurry, and Peter seemed to wake up. What had just happened? Why did he have his hand on Claire throat? And what were DL, Hiro, Ando and Matt doing on the floor?

He quickly let go of Claire's throat, and backed up with horror. "Did I… did… I…"

"Yes, you did," DL said while getting up. "What the hell just happened? I thought you could control your powers now…"

DL gave a hand to Matt. Peter said nothing and was just trying to understand what had just happened. He looked back at Claire, but the young girl wasn't here anymore. He heard the door of the apartment closed.

Matt looked back to Peter, angrily. "You scared the hell out of her. Do you realize that you could have killed her?"

Peter was definitely not in his right mind. "I.. huh, I'm… I just…"

"Can you leave us a minute please?" Matt asked to the three other men.

DL nodded. "I have to find Niki. I'll call you later," DL added. "And man," he said to Peter, "stop doing that, it's scary."

DL left the room and Hiro gave a small smile to Peter as a means to say that he wasn't angry at him. Ando looked deeply scared though. He held his hand to Peter, frightened.

Then only Matt and Peter remained. "Are you crazy or what?" Matt yelled. "You could have killed her! You could have killed us all!"

"I'm sorry," Peter said confused. "I didn't mean… I didn't mean to… Did I try… to strangle her?" he asked confused.

"Of course you did and YOU let HIM out in purpose!" Matt yelled accusingly.

"What?" Peter asked in disbelief. "You really think I'd consciously let this psychopath get the best of me knowing what he could do to you."

Matt sighed, and started to pick up the affairs that had been shaken in the struggle. "No, of course not," he finally said, relaxing. "You weren't feeling good today, I shouldn't have told so many people to come. It was too much."

Peter sighed, and looked down, feeling that it was his fault if he hadn't been able to control his power.

"I'm sorry", Peter said again.

"You really seem to be angry at her, anyway," Matt said sighing. "You almost killed her Peter, and I'm not sure she's going to let it go with a 'sorry'."

"I know," he whispered.

Deep down in his throat, something was aching. Something was bleeding. He guessed it was his heart.

"I'm so…"

Peter paused and sat on the couch.

"I'm so confused, Matt… I just can't seem to do the right thing, I don't even know what the right thing is! I've spent so much time trying not to care and at the same time working on giving her her life back…"

Peter's mind wandered. He hated her and loved her. How was that possible? How was that easy to live with? Peter's head ached. Too much was happening. That was not the routine he was used to.

Matt sat next to him and patted his shoulder. "You should go and see Claude. "

"I should." Peter nodded.

"I'll take care of Claire, ok. I'll talk to her. I'll make her understand. She'll understand; she loves you…"

Matt stopped and gasped. He didn't mean _that_ to get out of his mouth.

"What?" Peter asked surprised.

"idiot," Matt muttered to himself.

It was a secret. A secret he had taken from Claire's mind. Because she wouldn't admit it, because she knew Peter could read Matt's mind and if Matt knew that, Peter would know too. The problem now was that Peter knew it too. She loved him. She really, deeply, loved him but he didn't. So she thought that if she didn't say it aloud, with time, she would learn to stop loving him in return. But she realized how complex love was… How complex her feelings were…  
Claire had always loved Peter, back to the first time they had met. Their close friendship had transformed into a wonderful love story. And even when she had been missing, Matt knew Peter had always loved Claire, and Claire had always loved Peter. No matter how far they were from each other.

But Peter had thought she did not really love him. How could she, she had left his life two years ago? How could she love him when she had wanted him to go away when she had shown the first sign of illness?  
And yet, she loved him. Matt had heard it.

"Girls", Peter muttered.


	6. Don't say you've tried for the last time

**Author's note: **Haha! I finally figured out how works, like replying to reviews and stuff… seriously, I should have given a closer look before to all those details. I shall reply to comments now!

**Summary:**_Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then, and he loved her now._

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes, or Peter, or Claire, or any other characters. Everything belong to Tim Kring, the NBC and co.

**Chapter 6 : Don't say you've tried for the last time**

When Matt didn't see Claire come back, he worried. He waited, tried to concentrate his thoughts so he might be able to locate her –one of the numerous way in which his power had developed-, but he didn't succeed. He needed some help, but who could help him find a girl with superpowers without alerting the militia? That was actually the big issue…

Unable to feel useful or to reach Peter, Matt turned to the only person he could trust with this, and yet, the person he was scared to implicate. He took his phone and dialled the number

"Audrey, it's Matt. I need your help."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Matt arrived at Audrey's past 10 PM. The woman opened the door, looking tired, maybe because she had being woken up by a call from her ex-lover that_ actually_ never called her. She looked embarrassed but made him enter.

"Sorry to wake you up," Matt said softly.

When she didn't respond, "Bad day?" he asked.

"Not as bad as it could have been", she answered flatly.

Matt watched her move to the kitchen and thought painfully of the good and bad times he had spent in this apartment.

"So," she said finally looking him in the eyes as he came closer, "what's so important that you came out of your safe burrow?"

"Don't be sarcastic. You know I'd like to see you more," he said putting an innocent hand on her cheek.

"I know", she said, resigned, trying not to think of the warmth his touch provoked.

Matt and Audrey had been involved some years ago, once Matt had broken up with Janice. Audrey was the only woman that would never get scared by Matt's power. She trusted him and he felt good with her. But Audrey worked for the FBI and Matt was one of the freaks the FBI was tracking down. So after trying anything possible to meet each other without the attention falling too much on Matt, they had finally decided to break up, the situation being too complicated.

That had not been enough to stop them from loving each other though, and that had never stopped Audrey from helping the Heroes everytime she could…

An awkward moment passed and Matt finally got his hand off her face.

"On the phone," Audrey said still sleepy, "you told me about Claire. But isn't Claire missing?"

Yeah, Matt hadn't contacted Audrey in three weeks. Their relationship was that fragile. One phone call could give her or him away… those precautions were killing him… those precautions had killed their relationship. And he felt so damn bad for that.

Audrey sat, and looked at Matt.

"She was, till three weeks ago," Matt explained. "But now she's back. Well she was, because now she's missing again."

Audrey ran a hand over her face to wake her up.

"Ok, wait a minute," she said, confused. "She disappeared for two years. She came back three weeks ago. And now she's missing again?"

"Yep," Matt said, worried, sitting next to Audrey.

"And what exactly am I supposed to do?" she said with disbelief. "The girl clearly likes to disappear. She'll show up again. In two years," she finally added.

Matt made an ironic smile.

"She hadn't gone on her own. She kind of… got scared."

Audrey looked awoken now.

"Oh wait, how did Peter take the news?" she asked, remembering suddenly what problems Claire showing up after a mysterious disappearance of two years could bring…

"Not well, that's the problem…" Matt started but not saying much more.

He looked at Audrey meaningfully and she seemed to get the message.

"I just want to be sure she hasn't been… you know… captured again?" he said in a soft and pleading tone.

"Oh, yeah, by the villains completely taken from 1984…"

"Those ones exactly," Matt said with a smile.

Audrey didn't know exactly what the militia was. It was a division of the FBI, though a very opaque one. FBI agents knew it was charged to find Heroes. But what happened to those Heroes after they were captured, that was a mystery.

Audrey had never been in contact with this division. Everything was protected, and agents like her -regular FBI agents- were asked to avoid interaction with people working for the militia. Actually, if they were sent on an investigation and they came across with an agent of the militia, they had to give up the investigation and not question it. That was how powerful the militia was inside the FBI itself. And that was impressive for a division that was so secret.

"Please," Matt said.

He made his teddy bear face, knowing she couldn't resist. Audrey tried to avoid looking at him, because sheknew he was making his teddy bear face, and she knew she wouldn't resist…

"Ok, ok, I'll see what I can do," she said, giving up, getting up and probably thinking of going back to sleep. "WHAT?" she said a bit loudly seeing he didn't move but rather looked embarrassed.

"NOW?" she asked annoyed.

"That would be great," Matt said casually.

Audrey sighed in exasperation. "Great!" she snarled.

She headed towards her bedroom and disappeared. "Let me change first. This is going to be a long night."

"While we're at it, I haven't told you how beautiful you look," Matt said with a big thankful smile.

Her head popped up from behind the door. "Don't even try compliments. You'll pay for that," she said, her head disappearing again.  
Matt smiled. But the smile soon faded away. He needed to find Claire. He needed to find her and quickly. But he couldn't bring himself to believe what he said completely.

Finding her was one thing. Understanding what had happened to her those last two years was another, and maybe he was mixing both quests. He would be able to do both with Audrey's help…  
Maybe he wasn't so worried about Claire's being late and out there than about what she didn't want to tell.  
But Matt needed to find out because he had a nasty feeling. Peter, Claire, Linderman… Yeah, Matt had a really nasty feeling about the whole story.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Everytime Audrey had entered the FBI's unauthorized files, Matt knew he had asked a lot, though she never reminded him of that aloud. She could be fired, but worse, as a traitor, she could be imprisoned… maybe more. But Audrey had shown an unwavering faith in the Heroes and had helped them in any way she could. So she had never hesitated when she had to do it and she had never reminded Matt aloud of what she risked. Everything was a question of choice.

She was not a computer geek but she knew enough to enter the FBI site. What was risky was to enter the militia database and until now, none of the Heroes had dared ask her that. The only one who had been there was Micah. And he had been so traumatized by what he had seen that he had stayed for only thirty seconds in there and had disconnected as quickly as he could. He hadn't left his bedroom for a week. Matt really didn't want to implicate Micah in this again.

"We've already been through this a dozen of times," Audrey said to Matt while she started her computer. "We've already taken all the information that was necessary."

"I know, I know," Matt said, "I'm searching for something particular this time."

Audrey felt the cop in Matt get the better of him. "What are you looking for?"

"Something in the militia's files. Something related to experiment 467…"

"What?" Audrey asked Matt like he was making no sense.

"I think it was… Claire's number." He looked at Audrey and sensing that she was not catching everything, he continued his explanation. "She was having a nightmare so I went into the bedroom to calm her and she kept muttering this number. I think it was _her_ number," he finished meaningfully.

"Ok, let's try 467…"

Audrey started a series of manipulation that Matt couldn't understand. First she entered the FBI's files... "Would be better if we had Micah with us though," she said to Matt after a few seconds.

"I'm sorry," Matt said, sitting next to her. "I shouldn't ask you all of this…"

Audrey turned her face to him and smiled a little. "It's nothing, really. What the government is doing to you is pure madness. I want to fight for you." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and got back to the computer. "Here we are," she finally said.

Matt turned his attention to the computer again. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the files of the militia. I can't stay long here Matt," she said starting to browse the files. "They might already know someone's hacking their central."

She started the chronometer of her watch. "Two minutes, that's all they need to locate us. We're not staying longer," she warned.

She started to type all sort of things related to Claire Bennet, experiment, 467… She found nothing. There were dozen of different files about different subjects of experiments, about torture. Matt was barely keeping up, horrified by pictures, informations… But no sign of Claire…

"It's like the girl was never there," Audrey told Matt. "There's no sign of her in their database…"

"There must be", Matt said glancing anxiously at the watch. Forty seconds. "Search… search Claire Linderman," he finally said.

"Linderman?" Audrey asked.

"Do it!" Matt ordered. She wasted no time and typed the search. And she found it. Claire Linderman. Experiment files restricted.

"The file is restricted! I can't access it!" Audrey said panicking a little, seeing the time she had left.

"We have to do something!" Matt yelled helplessly, agitating his arms towards the computer.

"The file is restricted Matt! Only Micah or someone within the spheres of the militia could access it," she said, glancing at the watch. "I'm leaving now," she said finally.

She quitted the application and shut down her computer. "You better hope no one found our track."

Matt rested on the chair, ashamed, frustrated, a dozen of emotions colliding right now.

"I'm sorry" was all he seemed to think though.

Audrey seemed angry but Matt's face was enough to make her soften. "It's ok. I know how important Claire is to you. You want to know the truth. There's nothing wrong with that."

Matt put his head between his hands and let Audrey gently stroke his hair. "Claire will be alright. She's strong. Even without her power."

Matt looked up, her words striking her. Maybe Audrey was right. Maybe they all had always taken for granted that Claire was the strong one, but now that she was losing her power, they all seemed to think she was weak.

Matt started to wonder if somewhere in the middle of all that, Heroes hadn't started to value each other for their powers rather than for who they were, who they were before it all happened, who they were without their powers.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Sometimes, later that night._

It was a dark night, one of those nights without stars. The lights of the city were slowly fading, leaving Peter's spot in the dark.

"Peter?"

Peter turned around and saw that Matt was coming towards him. "I knew I'd found you here," the telepath added.

Peter said nothing, but looked back to the landscape. "I'm sorry I disappeared like that. I didn't mean to last it that long."

"It's ok… I mean, I got scared a little, right, but… I'm glad you're fine."  
Matt was next to Peter and he sat down next to the boy. "You've seen Claude?"

"Yeah", Peter said cautiously, looking the horizon. "And he said I was an idiot," he added after a moment.

Matt chuckled. "Claude always knows what to say to make you feel better, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so", Peter replied with a smile.

Matt said nothing but preferred that Peter continued to say what he wanted to say rather than answer what Matt wanted him to answer… Eventually, Peter started talking again.

"He told me that if _him_," he said referring to his evil double, "had taken control, it's because I wanted him to. He said those kind of things shouldn't happen with the control I acquired those years."

Peter took a deep breath. Matt could swear he saw Peter repressed a tear, but he didn't say anything about it. "And you know what", Peter continued, "I think he's right… You were right too."

There was something deeply sad and tragic about the little laugh Peter let escape at this last comment. It was the laugh of someone who was trying to fight everything he felt but was ultimately failing. It was the laugh of someone who didn't want to be hurt again by life, but who was hurting himself in the process.

"I wanted to be angry," Peter finally added, going back to what had happened early this morning. "But I'm such a coward that I let another one do the job for me."

"You're not a coward Peter," Matt corrected, wishing he could take his friend's pain away.

Peter glanced at Matt who continued, "I think you're angry, but I think you're in love too. And you just don't know which road to take."

Peter sighed. "I wish things were simpler," he simply said before falling into silence again.

"What else did Claude say to you?" Matt asked to make him talk again

Peter smiled at the memory of his conversation with Claude.

"He said that if I believed for a second that Claire didn't love me, I was the biggest idiot this planet had ever known, and that I didn't deserve to be the most powerful of all of us."

Matt repressed a smile. "And what do you think about that?" he asked more seriously.

"I think it's not that simple," Peter said again.

Peter smiled ironically. _Simplicity_. It all came down to that. But wasn't it a bit easy to hide behind that stereotype that was 'it's not that simple'? It certainly helped him in not dealing with his feelings…

"What are you going to do?" Matt asked, not daring to go on about the thoughts Peter just had.

"I have to talk to her. About what, I'm not sure. But I should talk to her," the young man said with conviction.

Matt looked at the landscape. It was gloomy and dead. It was quite hard to believe that there were some strong forces at work right now.

"You should, yeah," Matt assured.

"Is she ok?" asked Peter for what seemed the 365th time in three weeks.

"She seems so. Actually," Matt admitted, "she scared me too today because she disappeared the whole day after this morning's incident without telling where she was. She came back not long ago. When I knew she was safe, I left to find you." Matt preferred to avoid the subject of his visit to Audrey, which at this point wouldn't be of any help to ease Peter's pain.

"Right," Peter said before falling into a deep silence again.

The tension was cutting the air, and Matt felt… Matt felt he couldn't end the conversation like that.

"When I… when I first discovered that Janice had cheated on me," he started to relate though Peter didn't dare looking at him, "I was angry. Mad. She had betrayed me, betrayed the love we shared. But Audrey was there and told me reassuring words. She tried, said I had to mend things. And it worked for sometime, because as much as I felt hurt, I wanted to mend things."

"But it didn't last," Peter concluded still not looking at his friend.

"No," Matt admitted. "Eventually, Janice and I both realized that there was nothing to mend anymore because the love we once shared had disappeared."

"What are you trying to say?" Peter said finally turning his head to notice that Matt was now looking at him too. "That all hope is lost for Claire and me?"

Matt shook his head negatively. "What I'm trying to say, Peter, is… Claire and you have a lot of things to mend. But love hasn't disappeared between you…"

Peter seemed to understand what Matt was trying to say, what had been the point of this comparison.

"What I'm trying to say", Matt added, "is that you should never say you've tried for the last time."

Matt patted Peter on the back and got up. "See you, mate."

Peter nodded briefly. He stayed where he was, not following Matt, needing time alone to think things through. He finally came to a point when he didn't hear Matt's footsteps anymore and assumed that he was now alone.

_Don't say you've tried for the last time…_

Peter wondered if love could forgive everything. Cheating, betrayal… it occurred to him then how Claire's case was special. She hadn't disappeared with all her good will. She had at first, yes, but she hadn't meant to stay. She had sacrificed.

But wasn't that actually the hard part of the deal?

Suddenly, it became clear to Peter that since the words "I wanted to come back" had came out of her mouth, he knew he hadn't been blaming her for her actions. Peter had been blaming her because she reflected _his_ incompetence. _He_ had failed her.

He had failed to know something was wrong, when she was going through an identity crisis. He had failed to understand that she had left, not because she did not love him anymore, but because there were other forces at work.  
Peter was angry. But Peter was angry because he had truly believed she had left him. Peter was angry because his faith in her hadn't been unwavering.

And he felt so stupid right now… All this time, he thought he was directing his anger at her because she was the one to blame when in fact he had been angry at himself. And that revelation made things so simple now…

Unfortunately, Peter couldn't know right now that he would soon have even more reasons to be angry. He couldn't know right now that in a few hours, he would discover that Claire's life had taken a tragic and fateful turn.


	7. When old things are not so old anymore

**Author's note: **I'm sooooo bad at the whole thing. I'm so so sorry, but keep commenting, it's always nice (((thank you all)))

**Summary:**_Whether she was the fragile teenage cheerleader he had to save, or the invulnerable girl that had saved him so many times, or the insensitive grown up woman that could leave him in the blink of an eye and then come back, confused and begging for help, he loved her. He loved her then, and he loved her now._

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Heroes, or Peter, or Claire, or any other characters. Everything belong to Tim Kring, the NBC and co.

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**Chapter 7: When old things are not so old anymore.**

_The first time she entered his life, it was because he had to save her from a psychopath who wanted her power. He had made her his quest, his mission. And he first met her without realizing that she was the one he had to save. Something immediately happened between them and he somehow regretted that she wasn't older, or the special girl he had to protect. There was something about the way she spoke to him that made him feel… at ease. He hadn't feel at ease and secure since a long time... _

_As his mission reached its climax point, she ran into him, trying to escape an imminent death. Seeing the blood all over her body, and having her hand so tightly squeezing his, he knew that it was her. The girl he was meant to meet, meant to save. So he protected her, at the cost of his life. He had to. She was his cheerleader, the girl he had waited for all his life. _

_The first time she entered his life, he died, and came back. Because of her. She had the power of spontaneous regeneration. They had saved each other. _

_The second time he saw her, he was at the prison where he had been kept because the cops thought he was the one who had tried to kill her. She came to him with her father. Peter hated her father –both her fathers- but this one more than the other, because he had done her more wrong in many ways. _

_She seemed surprised to meet someone like her, but he wasn't like her. Not really. That didn't stop him from sensing an overwhelming feeling of peace when he stared at her though. He didn't know where it came from but he hoped it would never stop. He wasn't in love with her that day, though some could argue on that point, but there was already something so strong and powerful between the two of them that when she left, saying he was her hero, he knew he wanted to protect that girl for the rest of his life._

_The second time he saw her, he gave her hope, and she gave him strength. He would never forget her face, and she would never forget his name. They were forever bound._

_The third time he met her, he was at his apartment working on not exploding in New York. Someone knocked on the door, and here she was, two bags for affairs, tears running down on her face, obviously exhausted by a long journey. He didn't even consider to leave her in the doorway or to send her to someone else, even though he had no bed to offer. He actually didn't speak to her the first day she was there. She had fallen into silence and he could see that if she had been able to heal from any physical wounds made over her life, she was still bleeding from the betrayals she had known. He had many things going on in his life at that moment, but he just couldn't leave her on her own. He just couldn't. _

_When she entered his life this third time, she never left it. They became friends through the good and the bad times, through the laughs and the tears. And somewhere in the middle of it, they became much more._

_**NOVEMBER 2006**_

"Stop complaining!" she said. "You're the one who offered the bed. I told you I could get the couch."

"I'd be very impolite if I gave you the couch" he answered with a genuine smile.

Her mouth gaped open, and he wondered if he had offended her –he had never lived with a teenage girl before- but he realized that she was merely getting annoyed at his hand going invisible.

"Claude is coming," she stated obviously.

A knock on the door was soon heard and while Peter was slowly starting to disappear at Claire's annoyance, the door opened by itself. No one really entered, at least no one visible.

"Great, the geek club is united again," she said.

Peter glared at her, but he sometimes forgot she couldn't see him. "Hi Claude" he said while Claire was trying to locate the two men in the room.

She startled when the cup in front of her lifted in the air. She threw a fist on the table. "Will he stop doing that?" she asked Peter.

"_He_ has a name," Claude said. "And _he_ has some work with your generous host to do if you don't mind."

"Fine," she said putting her cup down on the table as strongly as she could.

But in her anger, she put the cup down so strongly that she actually broke it. Some pieces entered her flesh. "Damn!" She muttered.

She started to casually take the pieces of glass from her flesh at Peter and Claude's disgust. Blood was flooding from her wounds. And she didn't even feel a thing.  
Once she had got all the pieces away, her flesh started to regenerate itself.

"I'll never get used to that," she heard Peter said amazed.

"Wonderful power, the one of regeneration," Claude added. "It's a pity for the cup though, it didn't have a chance."

This sentence was too much for Claire who not knowing where to look, not knowing where to aim her anger at, decided to disappear into the bedroom. "Go to hell!"

"Do you always have to be like that with her?" Peter asked annoyed, once they were left alone.

"She doesn't like me," Claude declared.

"Of course she doesn't!" Peter exclaimed. "You've never been nice to her. Not once."

"Nice? I'm not good at nice," Claude stated with a smile.

"Then could you at least avoid making anything mean to her?"

Claude looked like it was going to be a hard job. "I suppose I could make an effort. But I'm not really sure why you keep her around. She's nothing but trouble."

"She's not!"

"She almost got you killed. _Twice_. In _three_ days! Everyone seems to be looking for her, her dad - her two dads- love to experiment on us, and her power is really not cool. I mean, she_ can't_ die but apart from that, can she get into the cinema for free?" he finished with a proud smile.

"She needs me," Peter said simply.

"Yeah, well, it's not because she needs you that you have to keep her around…"

_**A YEAR LATER. NOVEMBER 2007.**_

"Are you sure about this?" he asked one last time.

"Yeah, sure." she said both convinced by her own words and sad because of her own resolution. "I'm 18 now, I can live alone, and I think it's better for everyone."

Peter smiled clumsily. "I got… used to having you around," he said with a chuckle.

"Peter," she said exasperated, "I'm moving two apartments from yours. I think we'll both survive the distance."

Peter laughed at that perspective but his face turned serious again. "Yeah, but still… _things _won't be the same anymore"

She got on her feet and put a light kiss on his cheek. "You've survived me for a year now. It's time you get your freedom back. Besides, your habit of leaving your clothes everywhere was starting to drive me crazy," she finished laughing slightly.

"Liar!" Peter said as he watched her walk away.

"See you," she said, carrying the last box of her existence to the apartment next to Peter's neighbour. She turned back and gave the young man a slight smile. He smiled back, and she turned around again. She heard Peter's door being slammed and as she did the same, and surveyed her new apartment, she felt a strange feeling of not belonging… But it didn't last long…

The same night, a knock on the door was heard. It was Peter. "What you're doing here?" she asked him.

"We lived together for a year, you moved away and you don't want to hear about me anymore?" he said falsely hurt.

She smiled and took him by the shirt so he entered the apartment. "Of course not. I'm always happy to see you."

"So", she said showing him everything she had managed to decorate by herself until now, "what do you think?"

"This is cool. So cool that you have your girly apartment and that I could make my apartment a real man's apartment."

She chuckled. "Yeah, like you were the manliest man in the world and needed to show it…" She paused a little. "I guess, things are not bad as they are right now."

She looked like she was going to be depressed so she chased the thoughts away and decided not to be such a little girl.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asked.

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Do you actually have something to drink in your fridge?"

She looked alarmed. "Actually I don't think I have anything to eat", she said with a grimace.

He smiled, opening the door of her apartment "I ordered a pizza and rented a movie"

"You knew I would forget to buy food!!"

"We've shared the same apartment for a year Claire. Why do you think I'm always the one picking the food?"

She smiled, deciding not to get upset about how ridiculous she was right now. She got up and passed him by. "A pizza? Sounds great."

Peter headed towards his apartment while Claire stopped to close the door of hers. She had the feeling she wouldn't spent much time here actually.

_**SEVERAL MONTHS LATER. MARCH 2008. **_

"FINE!" she yelled, putting the keys of his apartment into his hand. "I don't need them anymore anyway!"

"Claire," Peter tried to say calmly. "Will you calm down please? Those are only keys!"

"Those are not only keys Peter! Those are the keys that say 'you can come whenever you feel like you want to'."

She stormed away from him towards her own apartment.

"But you still can come whenever you want to."

"OF COURSE I CAN'T!" she said slamming the door of her apartment in his face.

Peter opened her door furious. "Will you stop being such a baby?"

"I AM A BABY? DID YOU SEE _HER_?" Claire yelled turning back. "It's not because she's ten years older than me that she's mature!"

"Claire," Peter said massaging his head with his hand, "Jane is my girlfriend. I love her and we want to move in together. You should be happy for me!

"Oh, but I'm perfectly happy for you, if you're happy with a second class superficial bitch!"

"WHAT?" Peter yelled angrily. "You never told me that you didn't like her!"

"Because I didn't want to hurt you, and I didn't think it would become so serious. And for the record, I don't dislike her, I HATE HER!" she said, sitting on the couch, turning away from him and pouting like she only she knew how to.

"YOU… How can you… A friend would never say that to another friend!"

"You took back your keys! A friend would never do that!" she said crying.

"IS THIS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT? KEYS?" Peter yelled, reaching an end.

Seeing that she didn't answer, and seizing the opportunity to calm down the conversation, he came towards her and sat. "Claire," he said on a soothing tone, "you can understand that I want to start a family, marry the woman I love, have kids… you know that surely."

"Of course I do, it's just…"

She couldn't admit openly. She had that possessive feeling when it came to Peter since the first time she had slept under his roof. It wasn't about love or lust or anything like that. It was just about the two of them, and all the others were just obstacles trying to get between them.

"I don't want to lose you Claire, and it's not going to happen. We survived anything, apocalypses, death, your catastrophic skills in cooking" –she smiled- "it's not like you don't mean anything to me."

She turned to meet his gaze. "You'll always stay my cheerleader," he went on. "Plus, I wasn't so offensive when you dated that guy, what was his name already, Kevin?

"Yeah, but I never said I wanted to live with him."

"Fortunately, you didn't, I would have killed him if he had shared your apartment."

"You didn't like him?" she asked, feeling much better than Peter showed the same sign of possessiveness.

"I hated him. He was so wrong for you in many ways…"

_**A YEAR LATER. MARCH 2009.**_

"Are you sure?" she asked again, not really believing what was happening.

"More than sure," he answered. "I've never been so convinced of anything in my whole life."

He held the keys to his apartment and put them in her hand, closing it. He looked up and stared at her, feeling full, complete. He touched her cheek and thought that he had never touched anything softer in his whole life.

"For all the mistakes I made these last years, the time we lost…"

"We didn't lose anything" she said, holding his hand. "We took our time, and now the feeling is just the better."

He smiled. "So, I guess that's it. No more lies, no more cries."

"I can't promise anything, but I'll do my best," she said on a playful tone.

She got on her tiptoe and kissed him. He smiled. "I still can't believe it's true"

"Come on, Peter, we've been dating for a week, and you're acting like you are 13 years old and this is your first time. Don't be so childish, and kiss me," she finished on a commanding tone.

Peter leant and kissed her, but it didn't last long. "It's just… it really feels like the first time," he went on, interrupting the kiss.

Claire rolled her eyes and she punched him in the ribs while he let a 'ouch' escape his mouth.

"God, if I knew you'd be so sensitive and romantic, I would NEVER have dated you," she said starting to get up.

Peter took her hand and made her stay on the couch. "You're a liar," he said kissing her. "But you're my liar."

"You possessive pervert."

"Maybe," Peter nodded, smiling, "but at least I'm your possessive pervert."

She smiled and gave into kissing him again, and then she rested her head again his chest. "Peter," she said seriously.

"Yeah?" he said resting his chin on her head.

"What if… what if one day, we can't stand each other anymore… what if we split up… do you think we could still be friends?"

"Friend with the woman who broke my heart? I don't think so," he said jokingly.

"Seriously," she said pushing her head away from his chest so she could see his brown eyes looking at her from above.

Peter's smile disappeared. "I don't know. God knows what will happen in a month, a year, let alone a decade."

"I don't want to leave you. Never."

"Now you're the one being childish," he said being reassuring and alarming at the same time, she wasn't exactly sure.

Claire took Peter's hand and intertwined her fingers in his, hoping that they'd symbolically be forever bound with this natural gesture. She kissed his hand. "I'll love you. Always." She assured.

Peter smiled a little, not knowing what fear got hold of him at the moment. "Always," he repeated bending and kissing her.


End file.
